Clerks criticize color ballots

In the political world, red often symbolizes Republican and blue means Democrat, but in Massachusetts, another tradition reverses those colors and Cape Cod's town clerks say it's time for a change.

ROBERT GOLD

In the political world, red often symbolizes Republican and blue means Democrat.

In Massachusetts, however, another tradition reverses those colors. And Cape Cod's town clerks say it's time for a change.

Statewide, the top of Democratic primary ballots are red and the Republican primary ballots are blue. This has been the norm for 50 years, said Brian McNiff, spokesman for the secretary of state, who oversees Massachusetts elections.

"We were doing this long before blue state, red state went into vogue," McNiff said.

But Taylor White, town clerk in Sandwich and president of the Cape & Islands Town Clerks' Association, said the state's ballot approach can be confusing to poll workers and voters.

The association, representing the Cape and Islands' 24 town clerks, sent a letter this week to the secretary of state's election division, asking for the colors to be switched or for politically neutral colors to be used.

"While we are cognizant that one political party does not have the rights to one color over another, we are faced with the reality that popular culture has divided Democrats and Republicans by the colors blue and red," the letter states.

"Over the last 10 years the public has been inundated with media references to 'Blue States' and 'Red States.' This has created a reasonable anticipation that the Democrat primary ballot would be blue and the Republican primary ballot would be red."

McNiff said the elections office rarely gets this complaint from town clerks, but he said the letter's suggestion would be investigated.

"The ballot is white," McNiff said. "The top of it is colored (red or blue)."

White, the Sandwich town clerk, said he received several calls from concerned voters after the September primary, wondering about the colors.

Sometimes, a voter will ask for one party ballot and receive the wrong one because the poll worker "subconsciously" confuses the two, White said. "In their mind, it doesn't flow," he said. Once a ballot is pulled and a voter has been marked on a voter list, they cannot receive the other party ballot, White said.

Occasionally, this means a person who wants to vote for one party in a primary election will not be allowed, if the information has already been recorded, White said.

"That doesn't happen very often. It certainly has happened," he said.

A more frequent problem, he explained, is poll workers giving voters the correct ballot but accidentally marking the wrong party on the voter list. That means information kept about how many party ballots were pulled for a particular primary election can be skewed.

That's why switching the colors could help solve this problem, the Cape clerks argued. "We believe this small measure will help ensure more accuracy from our poll worker and less confusion among the public."

McNiff said poll workers in Massachusetts have worked with the current color scheme for 50 years and are trained to focus on the political party, not the ballot's hue.